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Jon Bon Jovi and his Toronto backers are reassessing whether even to continue in their pursuit of the Buffalo Bills, QMI Agency has learned.

Their bid has been on the rocks for weeks and no one within the group is optimistic they'll wind up buying the NFL team, according to two sources in the position to know.

The group cancelled a scheduled tour of Ralph Wilson Stadium on Wednesday.

"They're hanging on by the skin of their teeth," one source said. "The bid's on life support."

It has nothing to do with the announced departure Thursday of CEO Tim Leiweke from Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, whose role in the bid has been overstated (most often by Leiweke himself).

But it has everything to do with (1) the group's limited bidding power with Bon Jovi in the lead, and (2) lingering doubts about whether the trust would sell the club to a group that continues to refuse to commit to keeping the Bills in Western New York long-term.

A source said the Toronto group bowed out of a planned tour of the Bills' stadium in Orchard Park on Wednesday, and has no plans to reschedule it. The tour is a scheduled part of the due diligence process for all finalists, in what Morgan Stanley -- the investment bank conducting the sale for the trust of founding Bills owner late Ralph Wilson -- calls the "final phase."

There are three other known finalists: multi-billionaires Terry Pegula, Donald Trump and Tom Golisano.

The Toronto bid group comprises rocker Bon Jovi (as prospective controlling owner, with about a 30% stake) and his Toronto background investors, each with about 35% shares: MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum and Edward Rogers and his family, whose trust runs the Rogers Communications empire.

Sources say the trio are taking the next week or so to assess where their bid is at and to discuss what they could possibly do at this stage to mount a formidable, effective bid.

Morgan Stanley tried to help in that regard, sources said Monday, in suggesting last week that Bon Jovi approach Bills legend and Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly about joining forces. Kelly and his investment partner, Jeffrey Gundlach, hope to latch on as minority investors with another bid.

Kelly and Bon Jovi met, but Kelly rebuffed the rocker's request over concerns his group would eventually relocate the team to Toronto, Tim Graham of the Buffalo News reported Sunday.

As constituted, the Toronto group is limited financially by the amount of cash the rocker can pull together to meet the 30% controlling-owner threshold that the NFL demands.

Remember, the Toronto group's bid already died once after submitting an uncompetitively low first bid July 29. Even after being allowed to resubmit a higher opening, non-binding bid, and being asked to more clearly express a non-relocation intention, it wasn't until the Aug. 9-10 weekend that Morgan Stanley allowed the group to enter the sale's final phase.

A week ago Tuesday, the group had its first face-to-face meeting in Manhattan with sale principals: members of the trust, senior executives of the Bills, Morgan Stanley and the trust's legal adviser Proskauer Rose. It was a desultory meeting that further lowered the Toronto trio's hopes.

As QMI reported Monday, do not interpret Morgan Stanley's match-making attempt with Kelly as any expression of favouritism toward the Bon Jovi/Toronto bid.

The banker merely had this hope: to assuage Buffalonians' concerns about the Toronto group's suspected relocation intentions by teaming it with Mr. Bills-Can't-Move himself, so as to convince other bidders -- especially Pegula -- that the beleaguered group is indeed a viable threat to win the bidding.

Right now it is not.

One source said that, barring a significant development or reformation of the group, the Toronto trio is more likely to disband than submit a binding, definitive bid early next month along with the other finalists.

LEIWEKE'S ROLE MINIMAL

Tim Leiweke might be good friends with Jon Bon Jovi.

And he arranged the partnership between the rocker and Larry Tanenbaum long before founding Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson died on March 25.

Otherwise, multiple sources insist the outgoing CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment had a minimal role in Bon Jovi's group bidding on the NFL team.

One source in the position to know even said Leiweke had "absolutely nothing" to do with the Toronto bid.

"Nobody who mattered listened to him," the source said.

Another source, however, said that both Bon Jovi and Tanenbaum -- the MLSE chairman and one of Leiweke's bosses -- probably consulted with the 57-year-old executive at various times. But Leiweke did not have an impactful role within the group, that source said.

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Bon Jovi, Toronto group's Bills bid on 'life support'

Jon Bon Jovi and his Toronto backers are reassessing whether even to continue in their pursuit of the Buffalo Bills, QMI Agency has learned.

Their bid has been on the rocks for weeks and no one within the group is optimistic they'll wind up buying the NFL team, according to two sources in the position to know.

The group cancelled a scheduled tour of Ralph Wilson Stadium on Wednesday.

"They're hanging on by the skin of their teeth," one source said. "The bid's on life support."

It has nothing to do with the announced departure Thursday of CEO Tim Leiweke from Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, whose role in the bid has been overstated (most often by Leiweke himself).

But it has everything to do with (1) the group's limited bidding power with Bon Jovi in the lead, and (2) lingering doubts about whether the trust would sell the club to a group that continues to refuse to commit to keeping the Bills in Western New York long-term.

A source said the Toronto group bowed out of a planned tour of the Bills' stadium in Orchard Park on Wednesday, and has no plans to reschedule it.